LETTER: Drugs are root of more U.S. misery than guns

David Hogg, a student survivor from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. pauses as he addresses a community rally for common sense gun legislation at Temple B'nai Abraham Sunday, Feb. 25, 2018, in Livingston, N.J. (AP Photo/Rich Schultz)

After the tragic shooting at the school in Parkland, Fla., we are back to the debate on gun control.

I graduated high school in 1960. In the 12 years I spent in school, I don’t remember reading about a mass shooting at a school anywhere in the country despite the fact that a greater percentage of people owned guns and it wasn’t uncommon for students to bring guns to school, shotguns during small-game season and rifles during deer season.

Back then, it was hard to find a student who knew someone who used drugs; today, almost every high-schooler knows a drug user.

Last year, we had 25,000 gun deaths, two-thirds of them suicides and over 60,000 drug overdose deaths. I venture that the day of the 17 Parkland deaths more school-age children died from drugs and that goes on every day and it doesn’t count the gun deaths caused by drug-related violence. Drugs are biochemical weapons of mass destruction and the people who smuggle them or manufacture them should be treated as terrorist. Looking at the number of children suffering from ADS and bipolar problems, I wonder how much neurological damage even moderate drug use by parents is doing to their unborn children.

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Orange County, Calif., just removed a two-mile-long homeless encampment from the side of the road. Among the things removed were 250 tons of trash, 1,100 pounds of human feces and 5,000 hypodermic needles. The homeless are more victims of a drug culture.